argument220 kito 大贴

tomatopotatoUID：129913

Argument220（2005年2-9月总频21次）
【题目】The following appeared in an article in a magazine for writers.

"A recent study showed that in describing a typical day's conversation, people make an average of 23 references to watching television and only 1 reference to reading fiction. This result suggests that, compared with the television industry, the publishing and bookselling industries are likely to decline in profitability. Therefore, people who wish to have careers as writers should acquire training and experience in writing for television rather than for print media."

【翻译】最近一次研究显示当描述日常对话的时候，人们平均有23次提到看电视而只有一次提到读小说。这一结果说明与电视行业相比，出版和书籍销售行业的盈利能力可能会下降。因此，想要以作家为职业的人应该接受为电视而不是为印刷媒体写作的训练和经验。
Argument220（2005年2-9月总频21次）
【提纲】1关于调查的信息不足
           2 不能确定利润降低
           3 过早下结论
start 18;50 end at 19:27  word 404
The arguer asserts that people who wish to have careers as writers should acquire training and experience in writing for television rather than for print media. To support his argument, he cites the evidence of a recent study to demonstrate TV programs are more popular in a typical day's conversation than the fiction. Based on the study, author also suggests that the publishing and bookselling industries are less profitable than the television industry. However, a close scrutiny would reveal how groundless these assumptions are.

To begin with, a lethal problem involved in the argument is statistically reliability of the study. The author fails to provide any evidence that the number of respondents are statistically significant and that the respondents are representative of the whole population in this country. Lacking information about randomness and the size of survey's samples, author cannot draw any conclusion from the study.

What is more, the author simply assumes that the print media are less profitable than the television industry based on the study, whose reliability is still in question. Nevertheless, the author cannot establish a casual relationship between the study and this assumption. The fact that fiction is less popular in the people's conversation does not necessarily follow the fact that the print media profitability is on the decline. The author overlooks the possibility that those who reads more fiction are not willing to talk about the material in the conventional talk. The author also neglects the possibility that the profitability on each selling book is fairly high. Without ruling out these possible scenarios, the author cannot justify his assumption.

The last but not least, it is unfair to conclude that people who wish to have careers as writers should acquire training and experience in writing for television rather than for print media. Possibly competition in the television industry is much more fierce than that in the traditional print media. Or perhaps the salary in the print media is higher than that in the television industry because of government additional support. Without taking into account of these factors, the author cannot convince us that people should acquire training and experience in writing for television rather than for print media.

To sum up, the arguer should provide much more solid information about the study. In addition, more evidence should be given to substantiate the causal relationship in the argument. Finally, much additional surveys should be conducted before the hasty conclusion.

[ 本帖最后由 tomatopotato 于 2006-1-31 19:33 编辑 ]